AllMovie

One man's good intentions could prove fatal in this drama from writer and director Tom Schreiber. Marc (August Diehl) is a novice doctor in his mid-twenties from Frankfurt who accepts an internship at a hospital in Cali, Colombia. Marc isn't certain of what to expect going in, but it soon becomes clear that the poverty, violence and crime in Cali is more than he bargained for, as he treats gunshot victims in the emergency room and is confronted by a pack of teenage drug pushers during his first day on the job. Marc tries to distract himself from the misery around him with cocaine and promiscuous sex, but in time he bonds with Wanda (Marleyda Soto), a woman who runs a market in one of Cali's poorest neighborhoods and keeps a maternal eye on the children who've been lured into the drug trade. Marc and Wanda become romantically involved and he wants to find a way to help the desperate people he sees every day, but when Marc sees crime boss El Juez (Victor Villegas) murder one of his rivals, he's no longer seen as a friend of the poor but as a witness who could put a powerful man behind bars if he isn't silenced. Tom Schreiber and Oliver Keidel based their screenplay for Dr. Aleman on their correspondence with a friend who worked as a physician in Colombia.